Pattern - 3 Pence - Edward VIII Reverse Trial

Edward VIII abdicated in December 1936, before any coins bearing his effigy entered circulation. The Royal Mint had nonetheless advanced trial and pattern work for the proposed coinage, including reverse trials struck without the obverse portrait — hence pieces like this, which exist as working documents of a reign that lasted less than eleven months. Edward's insistence on being portrayed facing left, breaking the centuries-old alternating convention, created additional design complications that the Mint never had to resolve in production.